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U.S. President Joe Biden’s meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been widely described as a retreat from his intent to restore a foreign policy anchored in a commitment to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. While the White House insists that its support for a values-based foreign policy has not been compromised, the realist turn in Biden’s approach to the Middle East has been welcomed by some as a necessary corrective, including, apparently, by senior officials in Biden’s National Security Council.
However, downgrading the importance the United States attaches to human rights in the Middle East carries far greater costs, in both the short and the longer term, than such assessments suggest. Assigning human rights in the Middle East to the values side — the expendable side — of the foreign policy ledger is a troubling bit of historical amnesia that carries significant potential consequences.
How the Middle East’s Arab regimes govern is a matter of singular importance to the U.S. and to the West more broadly. Despite public and official fatigue with a region that has come to be seen as a drain on U.S. resources, it is a matter of U.S. interest that we neglect to our peril. Rights abuses should be understood as the canary in the governance coal mine, a critical indicator of deeper dysfunctions that have a direct bearing on social stability and the likelihood of domestic turmoil.
When the U.S. signals that it is prepared to do business as usual despite the poor track record of Arab regimes on human rights, what Arab autocrats hear is that they too can pursue business as usual — not only with respect to rights but in how they manage domestic politics more broadly. They hear a familiar and welcome refrain: that the U.S. again prioritizes stability over reforms that might upset an autocratic status quo. Yet as former presidents understood, U.S. support for Arab autocrats in the interest of stability and security produced neither. Instead, it enabled corrupt, repressive rulers and their cronies who enriched themselves at the expense of their people and failed to address the systemic erosion of social and economic conditions that weakened middle classes and left tens of millions of young people without hope for the future. Ultimately, failures of governance by Arab regimes sparked the largest wave of mass protests in the region’s history — the Arab Spring of 2011.
In the decade since, the conditions that led to uprisings in 2011 have only gotten worse. Lebanon’s economy has collapsed. Tunisia’s fragile democracy is unraveling. In the cases of Libya, Syria, and Yemen, the conflicts that followed mass protests continue to fester, immiserating millions and causing the massive refugee flows that destabilized European politics and empowered right-wing nativist movements in Hungary, Poland, the United Kingdom, France, and Denmark. The U.S. has provided more than $15 billion in humanitarian support for Syria alone. A second wave of mass protests in 2019 in Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, and Sudan ended with little to show for itself. Yet renewed protests underscored yet again the depth of popular anger with regimes and just how quickly superficial stability can collapse. In response, Arab regimes have become even more repressive since 2011, including those that participated in the regional summit arranged for Biden’s trip. Collectively, poverty, corruption, inequality, and repression have been described as a “structural threat” to the Arab region, more so than the realist concerns that motivated Biden’s overtures to Saudi Arabia.
If we ever imagined that the consequences of failed governance could be contained, the 2011 uprisings and their aftermath, including the emergence of the Islamic State group, should have put paid to that idea. What happens in the Middle East all too rarely stays in the Middle East. There is little question that European Union member states and the U.S. would be subject to spillover should another region-wide wave of mass protests and insurgencies occur. Nor would upheaval on this scale be the only circumstance in which the effects of failed autocratic rule become relevant for the U.S. and EU. Across the Middle East, even in the wealthiest Gulf states, youth unemployment remains disturbingly high. In a recent report, the World Bank referred to “crippling joblessness” as a leading driver of social distress in the region and identified regime failures as its principal cause. Not surprisingly, as the most recent data from the Arab Barometer survey project shows, significant numbers of Arab citizens report that they have considered emigrating, even as opportunities for legal entry into the EU or U.S. have sharply narrowed.
Anticipating criticism of his Saudi visit, Biden himself wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that the trip offered an opportunity to raise human rights and the murder of Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi directly with the Saudi crown prince. Had the visit not been choregraphed to minimize these concerns, such statements would be more compelling. As it becomes clear how little the U.S., or Biden himself, gained from the Saudi visit, the costs of undermining what was to be a pillar of his foreign policy will become more apparent. At a moment when failures of autocracy are on vivid display in Russia, China, Iran, and elsewhere, the Biden administration now faces an uphill battle to regain its credibility as an advocate of democracy, especially in the Middle East. At a minimum, the administration must do more than talk the talk of rights and democracy. It must also walk the walk in how it engages with Arab autocrats — including when it might be politically expedient to bump fists. To do so may well involve tradeoffs, anger Arab rulers, and incur costs to the U.S. But the failure to do so enables dysfunctional, repressive regimes and increases the odds that the U.S. will pay a far higher price in the future.
That’s a DIY video that shows the LA trio Night Talks has a real sense of humor and knows how to transform it into a nice and fun production.
The song itself is not funny per se: “On and On” tells the universal story of a struggling relationship where things seem not to evolve, but repeat themselves into a never-ending failure. Well, not really though. Because it tells how one should take responsibility and try hard to fix the relationship, whatever happens, with no consideration about the repetitiveness of the rough patches.
Nevertheless, the video tells you how you should take it: not so seriously. At least, that’s how I got it.
The song is part of an album called Same Time Tomorrow and “same time tomorrow” is part of the lyrics of “On and On”. You see the point?
It’s on and on
Love is tough,
I messed up
Is that enough?
Never did think it’d end this way
Searching for every word to say
Same time tomorrow?
Well, the trio, made of the brilliant singer Soraya Sebghati, the guitarist Jacob Butler and the bassist Josh Arteaga, likes to make it fun and so they did. Their song is pop, and their video is truly pop. Soraya said she wanted to make it scary and funny. Sorry Soraya, it’s definitely not scary. But it’s funny, and well done. And somehow, it sticks to the song, which has the potential to give you some strength and pop energy to work out your relationships around.
A bit of “Alien”, a futurist spaceship, nice flashy costumes, and a band that play their role with self-confidence and self-derision, that’s all what we need.
Judaism’s great gift to the world, according to essayist John Evans, was the idea of a single, omnipotent, omniscient and righteous God, with whom one could have a personal relationship. Such a concept—circa 2100 BCE, when Jews made their entry in history as a small nomadic tribe in the region called Ur in modern Iraq—was radical, to say the least. This set Jews apart from the other ancients whose concepts of divinity were a range of amoral gods, who were (either as household icons or as lofty super-beings dwelling on high) largely indifferent or worse, sadistic, toward the affairs of humans.
As Huston Smith writes, in The Religions of Man, “Whereas the gods of Olympus tirelessly pursued beautiful women, the God of Sinai watches over widows and orphans. While Mesopotamia’s Anu and Canaan’s El were going their aloof ways, Yahweh is speaking the name of Abraham, lifting his people out of slavery… God is a God of righteousness whose loving kindness is from everlasting to everlasting and whose tender mercies are all over his works.”
The Jews, then, were set apart in the ancient world, a factor that worked both for them—preserving a unique and imperishable identity—and against them, making them stand out as “different,” and hence a people to be watched closely and suspiciously.
And so it went, century upon century, scapegoat upon scapegoat, lie upon lie, until we come to our own time—with the living memory of the Holocaust persisting among that generation, antisemitic hate crimes on the rise on virtually every continent on Earth.
How have the Jewish people responded? The way they always have: with endurance. The Jewish people are the ultimate allegory of endurance. They have rewarded scorn with excellence in virtually every field of endeavor—from science to scholarship to entertainment. They’ve answered derision with charity, with 4,421 charities and nonprofit organizations in the U.S. alone. They’ve rebutted abuse by feeding the hungry, with 18 organizations devoted 24/7 to heeding the Biblical command, “Let all who are hungry come and eat.”
It’s difficult to quantify the gifts of Judaism to our culture in general and to each of us in particular. Just go through an average day and count your blessings. Do you get your morning coffee at Starbucks? Thank its CEO, Howard Schultz. Do you have something to tell the world on Facebook? Thank its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. On your way to work, do you play the music to West Side Story? Thank Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. If you’re school-age, do you sing “God Bless America” at the start of the day? Thank Irving Berlin. Need to Google something online? Thank Google’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Want to unwind tonight with an action-packed Marvel movie? Thank Marvel’s creator, Stan Lee. The list goes on and on.
Just as Jews were set apart in the ancient world, so too are they set apart in the modern world—but this time as pace-setters, innovators, ground-breakers. The modern gifts of Judaism then, are just that: gifts, and the example set by giving …and giving…and giving some more.
Gerry Shigouz was in Maskwacis, near Edmonton, Canada, listening to Pope Francis’ words as he travels the country on his “penitential pilgrimage”.
She told Vatican News’ Marine Henriot that she was “nervous”. Nervous to be surrounded by Catholic Church officials, and nervous to even look at some of the priests attending the Pope’s meeting with indigenous peoples at Maskwacis.
She said she feels this way because she is a residential school survivor, having attended Muscoweguan Residential School from 1962 to 1971. Along with Gerry, “my brother George attended for eleven years, my sister Darlene attended for ten years, and my little sister Connie attended for six.”
But Gerry has not always been able to speak about those years, explaining that she started sharing her story with other students only in 2015. Since then, she has “probably” shared it with about 15,000 individuals so far, from elementary school to university.
“I share my story because I like to get the truth out about our history and what happened, so that people know” because, she added “they didn’t learn that in school”.
“The world needs to know what’s going on,” stressed Gerry. She recalled the visit of an indigenous delegation to the Vatican in April, noting that there was no mention of the hundreds of children being found, to this day, on residential school grounds.
“I want people to know that they are mourning. We are grieving, and we feel sorry for those little children who never made it home.”
More than words
It took Gerry a lot of courage to attend the events in Edmonton. She cut off her relationship with the Church in 2010, the same year in which she disclosed her abuse and began to speak about what happened.
“I’m really nervous, and I feel uncomfortable right now,” she confessed as she attended the encounter with the Pope in Maskwacis. “But I am here, looking for and expecting an apology. I would like action. More than words. I’m looking for the apology to be sincere and genuine” and for “responsibility and accountability to be taken for the harms and the wrongs that were done. That’s what I’m looking for.”
Gerry recounted that her courage comes from whom she is there standing for.
“I’m here today to stand for my brother George. George never got to share his story. He never became a dad. He didn’t graduate, because he experienced so much trauma at residential school.”
And along with George, Gerry is standing for her parents: “my Mum and Dad, because their kids were taken.”
More than 236,000 people die annually from drowning – among the leading causes of death for those aged one to 24 years, and the third leading cause of injury deaths worldwide overall – the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday, urging everyone to “do one thing” to save lives.
The appeal on World Drowning Prevention Day outlines actions that individuals, groups and governments can take, and highlights initiatives already underway in some countries.
The majority of drowning deaths, more than 90 per cent, occur in low- and middle-income nations, with children under five at greatest risk.
These deaths are frequently linked to daily routine activities, such as bathing, collecting water for household use, travelling on boats or ferries, and fishing. The impacts of monsoons and other seasonal or extreme weather events are also a frequent cause.
“Every year, around the world, hundreds of thousands of people drown. Most of these deaths are preventable through evidence-based, low-cost solutions,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General.
To commemorate World Drowning Prevention Day, cities across the world are lighting up some of their prominent landmarks in blue.
WHO has its headquarters in Geneva, and the Jet d’Eau in Lake Geneva – one of the most famous attractions in the Swiss city – will be illuminated in blue on Monday evening.
Focus on solutions
The UN’s health agency works with partners, including Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in the United Kingdom, and the Global Health Advocacy Incubator, to raise awareness on drowning prevention.
The founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, described drowning as a global public health challenge.
“In many cases, we know what works to prevent drowning. We’ve developed tools and guidance to help governments implement solutions – and if we do more together, we really can save thousands of lives,” said Mr. Bloomberg, the WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries.
WHO has recommended six evidence-based measures to prevent drowning, which include installing barriers controlling access to water, and training bystanders in safe rescue and resuscitation techniques.
School-aged children also should be taught basic swimming and water safety skills, while boys and girls should be provided supervised daycare.
Other measures call for setting and enforcing safe boating practices, shipping and ferry regulations, and improving flood risk management.
Formal swimming lessons can reduce the risk of drowning.
Share and support
As part of the call to “do one thing”, individuals are urged to share drowning prevention and water safety advice with their families, friends and colleagues. They are also encouraged to sign up for swimming or water safety lessons, or to support local charities or organizations working on drowning prevention.
Meanwhile, groups can do their part, for example by hosting public events to share water safety information or launching water safety campaigns.
WHO also advocates action at the government level, including developing or announcing new drowning prevention policies, legislation or investment, and supporting drowning prevention programmes, whether domestically or internationally.
Commitment from countries
The UN agency and its partners are supporting countries to design and implement new prevention initiatives.
Bangladesh is among countries that have committed to drowning prevention programmes, and authorities there have started a three-year scheme to reduce drowning among children.
As part of the programme, the government will take over the 2,500 daycares established and funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies over the past decade. The authorities will expand the programme by adding an additional 5,500 daycares to provide supervision to 200,000 children aged one to five years.
Other countries that have received support for drowning prevention initiatives include Vietnam, Uganda and Ghana.
The theme of this year’s World Day against Trafficking in Persons is “use and abuse of technology”. Below, find examples of how technology can be harnessed to detect, rescue, and support potential or exploited trafficking victims.
The Internet is part of everyday life for billions of people around the globe. Daily activities that once necessitated in-person interaction – from shopping to romance, banking, and even health care – are now, not least due to the COVID-19 pandemic, commonplace online.
But there is a dark side to all of these advances. As the world has become more tech-savvy, so have human traffickers.
The internet and digital platforms offer traffickers numerous tools to recruit, exploit, and advertise victims; organize their transport and accommodation; and hide criminal proceeds – and all that with greater speed, cost-effectiveness and anonymity.
However, in the use of technology also lies great opportunity. “To protect people, we need to protect digital spaces from criminal abuse,” says Ghada Waly, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). “We can assist law enforcement authorities to use, with technical support and appropriate safeguards, artificial intelligence, data mining and other tools to detect and investigate trafficking networks.”
Moreover, the Internet can help provide support to victims across great distances, while awareness-raising activities on the safe use of social media could help reduce the risk of people falling victim to trafficking online.
Using technology to help victims before they are exploited
One example of a powerful, positive use of technology to counter human trafficking comes from Love Justice International, a civil society organization that has received funding from the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking (UNVTF). Love Justice works to identify potential victims while they are in the process of being trafficked – that is, after they are recruited but before they are exploited.
By combining its own data on previous potential victims with road network graphs from OpenStreetMap (a collaborative open-source geographic database), it has created route heatmaps showing the road segments that are likely to be most heavily used for human trafficking in certain areas.
Love Justice uses this mapping approach, together with data from the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration and GDP estimates from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite to develop a predictive model that extends the use of route heatmapping to locations where victim route data is not yet available.
These route heatmaps help Love Justice to determine where to put new ‘Transit Monitoring Stations’. At these stations, staff trained on how to profile potential victims – i.e., people who are in the process of being trafficked or at high risk of trafficking – ask a series of questions.
The organization uses machine learning to assign relative weights to a set of ‘red flags’ that may be uncovered through the questioning process, which help create the most accurate prediction of whether a person is in the process of being trafficked.
When staff identify a potential victim that meets the criteria, they attempt to ‘intercept’ them by convincing them to return to safety, or by involving law enforcement in cases with minors or more serious evidence. In cases where the risks are lower, where migrating for work is the most viable option for economic empowerment, or where migrants simply choose to continue their journey despite the risks, Love Justice works to facilitate informed and safe migration.
To date, Love Justice has intercepted 30,578 people to prevent them from being trafficked across 64 monitoring stations in 28 countries.
“When Love Justice staff first questioned me, I was afraid and lied about some of the things that happened,” said Safia*, a 14-year-old girl from India who had been deceived and molested by a trafficker before Love Justice monitors intervened.
“After I became more comfortable with them, I started telling them everything that happened. Had I not been intercepted, my life would have been difficult, and people would have looked down on me. I hope to become a police officer after I finish school. I want to be able to help other girls who suffer like I did.”
The organization also cooperates with the local authorities, providing them with information and insights to bring traffickers to justice. Love Justice reports that 1,176 arrests have been made as a result of its work, with 32 per cent of closed cases resulting in convictions. The organization’s work is a clear example of how technologies can be harnessed for good when it comes to human trafficking.
Using technology to provide support to trafficking victims
Espacios de Mujer, also funded by the UNVTF, provides psychosocial support to trafficked women in Colombia. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the civil society organization had to re-strategize on how it was going to get these critical, life-affirming services to victims in dire need.
The organization decided to bring its psychosocial support online, reaching out to 27 victims to help them improve their mental health. In order to help others and provide the same support online as it can in-person, Espacios de Mujer then created a virtual guide (in Spanish), outlining its methods for both professionals wishing to lead similar programmes and victims participating in the programme.
As one trafficking victim, Jessica, noted: “During the pandemic I got the virus, but I never felt alone because Katherine and Jenifer [respectively, a social worker and psychologist at Espacios de Mujer] called me a lot and helped me address my needs from home.”
Dennis Radtke MEP in conversation with representatives of the airport management (from left to right): Fabian Zachel (Head of Public Affairs), Dennis Radtke MEP (CDU), Peter Nengelten (Airport Neighbourhood Office).
DÜSSELDORF, 22 July 2022 – For Dennis Radtke, CDU MEP, the chaos at German and European airports was predictable. For the social expert in the European Parliament, the fact that passengers have to be at the airport several hours before departure, that it takes weeks for their suitcases to be delivered to their destination or that they even miss their flights has a lot to do with working conditions.
After a visit to Düsseldorf airport, the CDU politician is appalled by the prevailing working conditions at the external companies operating at the airports:
“New hires are exclusively part-time. Workers who spend the night in cars because they have no more money for petrol remind me more of Chinese migrant workers than of the birthplace of the social market economy.”
Radtke said in Düsseldorf:
“The responsible federal security bodies have completely failed. Security checks at airports are a sovereign task. They ensure the safety of all passengers and also contribute to the protection against terrorism.”
He said it was an absolute sham for the federal police to try to fill the gaps in passenger screening by deploying so-called “part-loans” (not qualified security staff).
Federal Government and especially the Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, should no longer look the other way when it comes to security, he added.
“The Federal Minister of the Interior must finally ensure that when services are contracted out, at least good working conditions are guaranteed for the employees.”
Before the start of a new travel weekend, the North Rhine-Westphalian MEP spoke with representatives of the management and works councils at Düsseldorf Airport and got an idea of the current situation by taking a look behind the scenes. Radtke said that it was alarming that in the meantime 100 employees of the service provider DSW at Düsseldorf Airport had filed overload and endangerment notices with the employers under labour protection law. “These are unacceptable conditions.”
A fortnight ago, the social policy spokesman of the EPP group in the European Parliament asked the European Commission with a catalogue of questions to urgently ensure better working conditions through firm regulations. “It cannot be that not only flights are cancelled, but that Lufthansa lets thousands of flights fly from airport to airport without passengers in order to halfway escape the chaos,” Radtke complains about the current situation. Miscalculations by the federal police and security companies had led to this lack of planning.
“The deficits at airlines and airports are in many places the result of ruinous downward competition,” Radtke laments the conditions. The trend towards cheap flights has ensured that fewer and fewer people are paid fairly for their work. Radtke: “That’s why many workers have looked for new jobs in other sectors in recent years.” Whether the decision to put aviation security in the hands of profit-oriented security companies was the right one should therefore at least be questioned, Radtke continued. He wanted to make sure that people could fly to their well-deserved holidays again and that the necessary business flights were carried out. It is therefore necessary that airlines and airports urgently improve their social standards and employ qualified staff at fair wages. Radtke: “Otherwise we will not succeed in finally fixing this chaos.”
Dennis Radtke MEP in discussion with works councillors of the airport and the external companies operating there (from left to right):
Güclü Alakus (DSW Deutscher Schutz-und Wachdienst GmbH + Co. KG Düsseldorf), Hatic Eligül (Deputy Chairman of the Works Council DSW Deutscher Schutz-und Wachdienst GmbH + Co. KG Düsseldorf), Jürge Rütten (DSW Deutscher Schutz-und Wachdienst GmbH + Co. KG Düsseldorf), Dennis Radtke MEP (CDU), Bouchaib Zine (Chairman of the Works Council Aviapartner Düsseldorf GmbH & Co. KG), Uwe Kmoch (Deputy Chairman of the Works Council Flughafen Düsseldorf Ground Handling GmbH).Dennis Radtke MEP in conversation with representatives of the airport management (from left to right): Fabian Zachel (Head of Public Affairs), Dennis Radtke MEP (CDU), Peter Nengelten (Airport Neighbourhood Office).Dennis Radtke MEP (CDU) informs himself about the current situation on site at Düsseldorf Airport.
State aid: Commission approves €700 million Italian scheme to support companies in context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
The European Commission has approved a €700 million Italian scheme to support companies in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The scheme was approved under the State aid Temporary Crisis Framework, adopted by the Commission on 23 March 2022, based on Article 107(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’), recognising that the EU economy is experiencing a serious disturbance.
Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: “Russia’s unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine continues to negatively affect the EU and the Italian economy. This €700 million scheme will enable Italy to mitigate the economic impact of the current geopolitical crisis on companies across sectors. We continue to stand with Ukraine and its people. At the same time, we continue working closely with Member States to ensure that national support measures can be put in place in a timely, coordinated and effective way, while protecting the level playing field in the Single Market.”
The Italian measure
Italy notified to the Commission a €700 million scheme to support companies in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
This measures follows two schemes to support the agricultural, forestry, fishery and aquaculture sectors that the Commission approved on 18 May 2022 (SA.102896) and on 22 June 2022 (SA.103166) respectively.
The measure will be open to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and entities with less than 1,500 employees (Midcaps) active in all sectors, with the exception of primary production of agricultural products, fishery, aquaculture, banking and financial sectors, affected by the current geopolitical crisis and the related sanctions.
In order to be eligible, companies must (i) have achieved, during the fiscal years 2019, 2020 and 2021, at least 20% of their turnover via exports towards Ukraine, the Russian Federation or Belarus; and (ii) foresee a contraction of such part of their turnover by at least 20% for the fiscal year 2022.
Under the scheme, eligible beneficiaries will be entitled to receive limited amounts of aid in the form of direct grants.
The Commission found that the Italian scheme is in line with the conditions set out in the Temporary Crisis Framework. In particular, the aid (i) will not exceed €400,000 per company; and (ii) will be granted no later than 31 December 2022.
The Commission concluded that the Italian scheme is necessary, appropriate and proportionate to remedy a serious disturbance in the economy of a Member State, in line with Article 107(3)(b) TFEU and the conditions set out in the Temporary Crisis Framework.
On this basis, the Commission approved the aid measure under EU State aid rules.
Background
On 23 March 2022, the Commission adopted the State aid Temporary Crisis Framework to enable Member States to use the flexibility foreseen under State aid rules to support the economy in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Temporary Crisis Framework provides for the following types of aid, which can be granted by Member States:
Limited amounts of aid, in any form, of up to €35,000 for companies affected by the crisis active in the agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture sectors and of up to €400,000 per company affected by the crisis active in all other sectors;
Liquidity support in form of State guarantees and subsidised loans; and
Aid to compensate for high energy prices. The aid, which can be granted in any form, will partially compensate companies, in particular intensive energy users, for additional costs due to exceptionalgas and electricityprice increases. The overall aid per beneficiary cannot exceed 30% of the eligible costs, up to a maximum of €2 million at any given point in time. When the company incurs operating losses, further aid may be necessary to ensure the continuation of an economic activity. Therefore, for energy-intensive users, the aid intensities are higherandMember States may grant aid exceeding these ceilings, up to €25 million, and for companies active in particularly affectedsectors and sub-sectors up to €50 million.
Sanctioned Russian-controlled entities will be excluded from the scope of these measures.
The Temporary Crisis Framework includes a number of safeguards:
Proportional methodology, requiring a link between the amount of aid that can be granted to businesses and the scale of their economic activity and exposure to the economic effects of the crisis;
Eligibility conditions, for example definingenergy intensive users as businesses for which the purchase of energy products amount to at least 3% of their production value; and
Sustainability requirements. Member States are invited to consider, in a non-discriminatory way, setting up requirements related to environmental protection or security of supply when granting aid for additional costs due to exceptionally high gas and electricity prices.
The Temporary Crisis Framework will be in place until 31 December 2022. With a view to ensuring legal certainty, the Commission will assess before that date if it needs to be extended. Moreover, during its period of application, the Commission will keep the content and scope of the Framework under review in the light of developments regarding the energy markets, other input markets and the general economic situation.
The Temporary Crisis Framework complements the ample possibilities for Member States to design measures in line with existing EU State aid rules. For example, EU State aid rules enable Member States to help companies cope with liquidity shortages and needing urgent rescue aid. Furthermore, Article 107(2)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union enables Member States to compensate companies for the damage directly caused by an exceptional occurrence, such as those caused by the current crisis.
Furthermore, on 19 March 2020, the Commission adopted a Temporary Framework in the context of the coronavirus outbreak. The COVID Temporary Framework was amended on 3 April, 8 May, 29 June, 13 October 2020, 28 January and 18 November 2021. As announced in May 2022, the COVID Temporary Framework has not been extended beyond the set expiry date of 30 June 2022, with some exceptions. In particular, investment and solvency support measures may still be put in place until 31 December 2022 and 31 December 2023 respectively, as already provided for under the existing rules. In addition, the COVID Temporary Framework already provides for a flexible transition, under clear safeguards, in particular for the conversion and restructuring options of debt instruments, such as loans and guarantees, into other forms of aid, such as direct grants, until 30 June 2023.
The non-confidential version of the decision will be made available under the case number SA.103464 in the State aid register on the Commission’s competition website once any confidentiality issues have been resolved. New publications of State aid decisions on the internet and in the Official Journal are listed in the Competition Weekly e-News.
More information on the Temporary Crisis Framework and other actions taken by the Commission to address the economic impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can be found here.
In recent years, as more and more children’s graves have been discovered in residential schools across Canada, the world is discovering the trauma of a population that suffered for decades under a system designed to “kill the Indian within the child. It is in this martyred land that Pope Francis is making a penitential pilgrimage from July 24 to 30.
In 1990, Chief Phil Fontaine of the Assembly of First Nations broke the silence and denounced for the first time publicly the cases of abuse in the residential schools run by the Canadian federal government and supported by the Catholic Church. In the 2020s, the discovery of the graves of hundreds of children in the vicinity of these institutions provoked a wave of indignation and awakened Canadian and world opinion to the realities of Canada’s Natives communities. “In recent years, we have gone from a great ignorance and indifference on the part of the Canadian population towards the native people, to an openness,” notes Jean-François Roussel, a researcher attached to the University of Montreal, anthropologist and specialist in native cultures.
It is therefore a traumatized population that Pope Francis has come to meet on their land in the summer of 2022. A violence experienced in the residential schools, which crosses generations. Some native people have decided to cut ties with their families, with the community, because it is too difficult,” continues Jean-François Roussel, “others have never understood why their parents showed so little love, and the insecurity is reproduced between generations. It is very difficult to deal with this history, with reflexes that we don’t understand very well. Others still, did not have the words to talk about what they suffered: “There is shame and anger turned against oneself”, explains the anthropologist.
Being indigenous and Catholic
The Catholic Church has had a relationship with Canada’s Aboriginal peoples since the 17th century. In 1998, the Canadian Catholic Aboriginal Council was created within the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) to offer information and recommendations about Aboriginal communities and thus begin a healing process.
In 2009, during an exceptional audience, Benedict XVI received Aboriginal representatives in private. The Bavarian Pope expressed his regret for the role of the Church in the forced assimilation of Aboriginal children: “The Holy Father expressed his regret for the anguish caused by the deplorable conduct of certain members of the Church and offered his sympathy and solidarity in prayer. His Holiness emphasized that acts of abuse cannot be tolerated in society,” the Holy See press release said at the time.
The Canadian Church officially apologized in September 2021 and six months later announced the creation of a $30 million fund to finance various reconciliation projects across Canada. In the spring of 2022, receiving more than 150 members of an Aboriginal delegation at the Vatican, Francis expressed his shame and indignation: “For the deplorable conduct of these members of the Catholic Church, I ask God’s forgiveness and I would like to say to you from the bottom of my heart: I am truly grieved. Today, the official website of the national organizers of the papal visit states, “the Catholic Church has a responsibility to take authentic and meaningful steps to accompany the indigenous peoples of this country on the long road to healing and reconciliation.
Sacred Heart Church of the First Nations. Edmonton, Canada
Elder Fernie Marty is the Elder of Sacred Heart First Nations Church and will welcome the Pope to Edmonton on Monday, July 25. This sunny man, with a ponytail and deep eyes, defines himself as Catholic and Aboriginal. Born in Edmonton, he belongs to the Papaschase First Nation. “I feel blessed to live in both worlds,” he said during the final preparations to welcome Francis, “my mother made sure I was baptized at birth, and my mother’s family made sure I stayed close to our Aboriginal culture. I was able to blend these two cultures that I was born into. According to the last major Canadian census conducted in 2011, 36% of Aboriginal people said they were Catholic and 31% said they did not belong to any religious group. A non-mandatory census, however, nuances Jean-François Roussel, “all researchers agree that this census is not very reliable”, but it is currently one of the only statistical tools available to determine the proportion of Catholics among Aboriginal people: “The Catholic faith remains an important reference among Aboriginal communities and in the family memory. There is an existential dimension to the Christian faith, an attachment to Christ with local community forms.
Moreover, if some indigenous people feel that they have been betrayed by the Church, respect for the choice of individuals and religious freedom are highly valued in the indigenous culture.
Attachment to the Land
Land is intrinsically attached to the Indian Act of 1876. This same land on which the 139 residential schools were built, this same land confiscated by the Canadian federal government, divided into reserves “to solve the Indian problem”, explains Jean-François Roussel. Thus, although Alberta is the traditional territory of the First Nations, the 138 reserves represent today only a little more than 1% of the total surface of the province, sheltering the members of the 47 First Nations of Alberta.
Reserves managed with humiliating texts. For example, some stipulate that these despoiled territories must not measure more than 2.6 square kilometres for each family of five. Many generations of natives have grown up on coveted, confiscated land, “the land is linked to a suffering experience”, explains the anthropologist, “the residential schools were created to transform the mentality of the children, to remove this relationship to the land and make them into Canadians like any other, who mixed with other Canadians”.
Finally, the land also represents the motherland, the shelter of the buffalo, the source of food and the basis of nomadism, before their gradual disappearance and the arrival of famine in certain regions. “Yes, I heard the apology of the Pope in Rome, and it was essential, but it is much more important precisely here, because this is where everything happened. I don’t know what healing looks like that we’re talking about, but whatever happens, I’m ready to follow it!”, concludes Elder Fernie Marty.
